Red River Watershed Management Institute

About the Institute

Recognizing the pressing global need to ensure future water resources and the relevant role of the Red River basin, the LSU System Board of Regents took decisive action on July 20, 2001. On that date, the Regents established the Red River Watershed Management Institute at LSU Shreveport.

The Red River Watershed Management Institute is a consortium of LSUS faculty working in partnership with local, state, and federal government agencies, environmental organizations and other stakeholders, collaborating in research, education, and community service/outreach related to watershed management. The Institute provides information critical for developing resource management strategies focusing on the natural resources and biological diversity within the Red River Watershed.

LSUS in partnership with Caddo Parish has developed a long-term ground water monitoring well program to evaluate ground water resources as a sustainable source to aid in economic development.

Also, LSUS and the City of Shreveport have signed a 20-year partnership agreement to jointly manage the Red River Education and Research Park, a 585 acre "living laboratory" adjacent to the LSUS campus and fronting directly on the Red River.

Business and industry, too, have joined this dynamic team. A consortium that included MHC X-Ploration, of Tyler, Texas, and Halliburton drilled and evaluated a truly innovative monitoring well at one of the Institute's three research sites. It was the first time some of Halliburton's unique wire-line logging tools (Magnetic Imaging Resonance Log) have been used for environmental evaluation.

The Institute's interdisciplinary studies on the environment and ecology are conducted throughout Northwest Louisiana but our research center is the Red River Education and Research Park. The area includes the city of Shreveport's C. Bickham Dickson Park. This urban park, adjacent to the LSUS campus encompasses an oxbow lake that floods seasonally and therefore offers unparalled opportunities for environmental studies of floodplain wetland areas. The park is one of the Red River's wetland "kidneys". The proximity of the Park to the LSUS campus, less than mile away, provides the ultimate living laboratory for education and research in a wetland.